Trade Secrets

SIX

Vecilius’s glassworks was a low building that covered most of a short block, with a two-storey house taking up one of the corners. I glanced up at the window as I passed. A young woman’s face looked out for a moment, then just as quickly disappeared.

Uh-huh.

I went inside, and the heat hit me like a sledgehammer. Jupiter, how could people work in this? Even with the clerestory ventilation, it was like walking into an oven, with three or four open charcoal furnaces going full blast and half a dozen slaves in sweat-soaked tunics doing complex things with lumps of molten glass stuck on the ends of long blowpipes. A guy carrying a tray of perfume bottles walked past me, and I stopped him and asked for the boss.

‘Over there, sir.’ He nodded towards the far corner of the room.

I went across, being careful to keep well clear of the blowpipes. Vecilius – presumably – was working on a tall vase set on a revolving wheel, dipping a metal rod into a clay pot of molten glass on the brazier beside him and trailing a thin thread of green in a spiral down the vase’s length. I waited until he was finished and had set the rod down. Then I said:

‘Titus Vecilius?’

He turned. He was a big guy, broad rather than tall, with huge hands, hairy arms and a good three days’ worth of black stubble.

‘That’s right.’

I indicated the vase. ‘Nice. Delicate work like that must be tricky.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s simple enough if you’ve a steady hand. What can I do for you?’

‘Name’s Valerius Corvinus. I’m looking into the death of Gaius Tullius, on behalf of his widow.’

He gave me a long stare. Then he cleared his throat, spat, and took a drink of water from the cup beside him.

‘Is that so, now?’ he said.

‘You knew he’d been murdered?’

‘I’d heard. Three or four days ago, wasn’t it? It couldn’t’ve happened to a nicer guy.’

That came out flat. Well, as with Festus I wasn’t unduly surprised; a murder practically on your doorstep doesn’t happen all that often. I was getting used to the reaction, too. ‘Look. Can we talk about this outside? It’s pretty hot in here.’

‘I’ve work to do. And I’ve no time to waste on Gaius fucking Tullius, dead or alive.’

‘You’d enough time for him the day before to go round to his office and threaten him through his partner, pal. Now do we talk, or do I draw my own conclusions? Your choice.’

He swore under his breath and walked away from me towards the exit. I followed.

It was blessedly cool in the open air. Vecilius had stopped just outside the door.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Five minutes. What do you want to know?’

‘How you knew that your wife was having an affair with Tullius, for a start.’

‘My wife wasn’t having no affair with no one!’

‘Fine. Suppose you tell me what the real situation was.’

‘Look. I leave the house after breakfast that morning and come in here as usual, right? Only half an hour later I realize that I’ve left a customer’s instructions for a one-off set of table glassware at home. So I go back for them. I find this crazy bitch laying into my wife, Hermia, claiming that she’s pinched her boyfriend, Tullius, and threatening to scratch her eyes out. So I grab her by the waist, bundle her outside, and shut the door. That’s it, that’s the whole story.’

‘So what did your wife say?’

‘That Tullius had been sniffing around, sure, trying it on. But that she’d told him to get lost.’

‘And you believed her?’

He gave me an ugly look. ‘You saying I’d any reason not to?’

‘Uh-uh.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t know anything about it one way or the other. Who was the woman? You know her?’

‘I didn’t at the time, but I do now. A friend of Hermia’s, or she had been up till then. Name of Marcia. Slut!’

‘So you went round to Tullius’s office to, ah, discuss things.’

‘Damn right! If I’d found the bastard I would’ve punched his lights out, but I didn’t. As it was I told his partner, Poetelius, straight that if he showed his nose around here again they’d have to cart him off on a stretcher. They would’ve done, too.’

‘And did he? That you know of?’

‘No.’

He was lying, I’d’ve given good odds on that, but I valued my teeth too much to say so straight out; in his present mood the guy would’ve clobbered me.

‘So where were you the next day, the day of the murder?’

‘Here, in the workshop.’

‘All day?’

‘Of course, all day. Sunrise to sunset. I’ve a business to run.’

I shrugged. ‘OK, pal, keep your hair on. No problems. Thanks for your help.’ I turned away, then as if I’d just thought of it I turned back and said, ‘Can I speak with your wife, maybe?’

‘She’s out.’

‘That’s a pity.’ I glanced up at the window where I’d seen the woman’s face. ‘That your house, by the way?’

‘Yeah. So?’

‘Handy. Living just next to the shop, I mean.’

‘Yeah, it is. Now fuck off. That’s all you’re getting.’

‘Sure. Thanks again. You’ve been really, really helpful.’

He didn’t answer. I walked on down the road, in the direction of the Emporium. When I turned to look back, he was still watching me.

OK. So we’d just have to leave Hermia for another time. It was getting on for noon. I still had Poetelius’s disgruntled ex-supplier Vibius to see, but before that I thought I’d check out the local wineshop situation. I reckoned I deserved it.

I found one just short of the Emporium itself, where Trigemina Gate Street takes a bend past the Aemilian Porch. Not a particularly upmarket establishment, but then it wouldn’t be in this part of town, where the clientele would be mostly workmen and stevedores from the wharves. The place was empty at present. Bad sign, but maybe we hadn’t quite hit the lunchtime spot.

‘Morning, sir,’ the guy behind the bar said. ‘What can I get you?’

I glanced up at the board. ‘A half jug of the Graviscan would do nicely, pal. And some cheese and olives, if you’ve got them.’

‘No problem.’ He busied himself with pouring from one of the big jars in the rack beside the counter. ‘Down here on business, are you?’

I knew an opening and a talkative barman when I saw one, but I waited until he’d set the jug and cup with a plateful of cheese, olives, and bread in front of me and taken the money before I said, ‘More or less. At the Vecilius glassworks.’ I took a tentative sip of the Graviscan. Not bad, but a long way from the best I’d ever tasted. ‘You know him? Vecilius, I mean?’

‘Sure. He’s one of my regulars. Too much of a regular at times, although I shouldn’t be complaining about that.’

‘Likes his wine, does he?’

‘He can sink a fair bit of an evening, but it’s more what comes out of his mouth than what goes into it.’

‘A bit of a troublemaker, you mean?’

The guy chuckled. ‘He’s that, all right. Touchy as a bear. You wouldn’t want to get the wrong side of him, sir, particularly where his wife’s concerned.’

‘That so, now?’ I took another sip and a bit of the cheese.

‘Not that I blame him for it. She’s a good-looking woman, Hermia, and he was lucky to land her. She knows it, too, if you catch my drift, but then she’s got him wrapped round her little finger. Still, where Vecilius is concerned she’s a subject best avoided.’

Joy in the morning! I’d got a real gossip-monger here. Mind you, it was lucky there were no other customers or he might not’ve been so chatty. Even so, it’d be a mistake to push too hard. I didn’t comment, just nodded, drank some more of my wine, and got on with the olives and cheese. The silence lengthened. Finally, I crossed my fingers in the hope that he hadn’t heard anything about the murder and said casually:

‘Strangely enough, he was telling me he had a bit of a run-in with an admirer of hers the other day. Or a would-be admirer, rather.’

‘Vecilius?’ The guy gave me a sharp look. ‘Did he, now? Well, well, you don’t say.’ He pulled up a high stool and sat directly opposite me, like a Suburan housewife settling in to dig the local dirt over the wall with her neighbour. ‘Three or four days back, would that be?’

‘Yeah.’ I tightened the crossed fingers. ‘Yeah, it would, actually. He say anything about it?’

‘Not as such. Not the run-in side of things. But he was in here in the morning, practically first thing, sinking wine like it was out of fashion and spouting off. The way he does sometimes.’

My interest sharpened. So much for Vecilius’s claim to have spent all day, sunrise to sunset, at the glassworks.

‘That usual for him?’ I said. ‘Morning drinker?’

‘Nah. He’s a worker, Vecilius, I’ll say that for him. Careful, too; he’d have to be, in his line. A glassworks is no place to be when you’ve had one over the odds. Normally it’s just the half jug at the end of the day, maybe a whole one if he’s something to celebrate or the company’s good.’ He filled a spare cup from a jug on the counter and took a contemplative sip. ‘Tullius, would that be the guy’s name, now, by any chance? Hermia’s admirer’s, I mean? Gaius Tullius?’

Heavenly choirs sang, but I kept my face straight.

‘It could’ve been,’ I said. ‘Something like that, anyway. Three days back, did you say?’

‘No, it was four for certain. The monthly delivery arrived just after he left.’

‘Vecilius left?’

‘Sure.’ He chuckled. ‘About this time, it was. My suggestion: he’d had two full jugs, and he was practically legless. But he was back an hour later to finish the job.’

‘Still talking about this Tullius?’

‘No. Never said a word about anything, in fact, just took his jug and cup into the corner there and drank his way through it. Then he passed out and I had a couple of the lads take him home.’ He grinned. ‘That’s Titus Vecilius for you. Not the man to do things by halves.’

‘Right. Right.’ Shit! I’d got him! Not only had Vecilius lied about being at the workshop all day, the day of the murder, but after getting thoroughly canned and cursing Tullius six ways from nothing he’d gone walkabout for an hour. And when he’d come back the subject of Tullius had been shelved. Like, I suspected, the poor bugger had himself …

Titus Vecilius was so much in the frame you could’ve hung him on the wall of the Danaid Porch.

The barman had picked up a rag and was wiping the counter in an absent-minded way. ‘This Tullius, now,’ he said, sucking on a tooth. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, sir, but wasn’t that the name of the stiff the Watch picked up knifed in Melobosis Alley?’ He gave me a sly sideways look. ‘If so then your mentioning him off the cuff, like, and showing a bit of interest in Titus Vecilius’s movements is quite a coincidence, isn’t it? Tullius was a friend of yours, perhaps? Or maybe you’ve got some other vested interest in finding out who knifed him?’

Bugger.

‘Uh-uh,’ I said. ‘No connection. I’d never met the man, just heard the name. It could be the same guy, sure, but if so then like you said it’s just pure coincidence. These things happen.’

‘Sure they do. All the time.’

Well, I supposed the chances of the local wineshop owner not knowing about the murder had been pretty slim, after all. I was just lucky the gossipy bastard also had a nasty, muck-raking streak a yard wide. Even so, I’d no desire at this point to complicate matters. I finished my wine at a gulp and stood up.

‘Thanks, pal,’ I said. ‘Be seeing you.’

‘Pleasure. Call again.’

I went out. I’d talk to the third supplier, Vibius, sure, while I was in the area, but at this point I suspected that it’d just be a matter of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. I’d got my killer cold.

Case over. Done and dusted.

Like Poetelius had told me, Vibius’s pottery was further along the road, past the Emporium and opposite the end of the Aemilian Porch. Just as at Festus’s place, there were the usual bread-and-butter amphoras and rough clay storage jars piled up in the yard outside, but when I went in most of the racks held the sort of items you’d only find in shops specializing in upmarket tableware and fine decorative goods. Pretty expensive shops at that: from what I could see, the stuff was first-rate, pick-of-the-range formal dinner party rather than everyday domestic standard for the dishes, and birthday-present quality for the vases. Yeah; Poetelius had said that the guy was a master craftsman, in a different league from Festus altogether. Losing the contract to an also-ran when you were producing work like this must’ve rankled.

It didn’t seem to have hurt him in the longer term, anyway. The place was busy enough, with five or six slaves bringing up one-off pots and jars on the wheel and a dozen more working at the benches packing moulds and glazing or painting the biscuit-fired pieces. I paused to watch one old guy in a freedman’s cap who was using a tiny brush to paint the lid of a cosmetic box no more than three inches long and wide with a scene involving nymphs and satyrs. Lovely stuff.

Finally, he put the brush down and turned towards me.

‘Yes, sir?’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I was looking for the owner,’ I said. ‘Titus Vibius. He around at present?’

‘I’m afraid not. But if you’re a customer then perhaps I can help you myself.’

Ah, well, I couldn’t be lucky every time. ‘No, it’s a private matter. You have any idea when he’ll be in? Or where I can find him?’

‘That I don’t know. But you could try his house, sir, on the off-chance that he might be there. Down the road a little on the Porch side. The one with the red-painted door.’

‘Thanks, pal.’ I left him to his finicky work and went back out into the street.

I found the house – like Vecilius’s, a two-storey property with a garden to the side – and knocked. A couple of minutes later, it was opened by an elderly slave.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘The master at home?’ I said.

‘He is. Who shall I say?’ I gave him my name, and then repeated it louder when he cupped his hand to his ear. ‘Thank you. The master’s in his study, sir. If you’d like to come in and wait, I’ll fetch him for you.’

No lobby and atrium here – the place wasn’t big enough – but it was a lot more spacious than a tenement flat in the town proper would be; one of those older upper-working-class houses you get on the outskirts, with two or three rooms off a central corridor ending in a staircase leading up to the first-floor landing. The slave opened the door on the left.

‘In here, sir,’ he said.

‘Who is it, Silvius?’

I looked up. A girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, was leaning over the balustrade. Quite a looker: brunette, and from what I could see of her with quite a nice figure.

‘A Valerius Corvinus, miss. Come to see your father.’

‘Oh.’ She disappeared, and I heard a door close upstairs.

‘Sir?’ The slave was standing aside, waiting.

‘Uh … right. I’m sorry.’ I went past him into the room.

‘The master won’t keep you a moment. Make yourself at home, please.’

He shuffled off, closing the door behind him.

There was a couch and a couple of chairs, which was about all the available floor space could manage; simple, but good quality. I sat on one of the chairs and looked round. The same description applied to the decor; nothing flashy, but one wall had a very nice fresco of deer in a wooded landscape, and the others were plain-colour-washed with a frieze of acanthus at the top and painted-in panelling at the bottom. In the corner opposite me was a small table with a pottery vase full of narcissi, in the same style as the vases I’d seen on display in Vibius’s workshop. Someone had good taste; probably his wife.

A couple of minutes later the door opened again and a guy in his early fifties came in. Tall, thin, slightly stooped, grizzled hair, dressed in a lounging-tunic.

‘Valerius Corvinus?’

‘That’s me.’ I stood up.

‘What can I do for you?’ Vibius waved me down again and sat on the other chair. ‘If it’s business, you’d do better talking to my foreman at the workshop. He handles most of the orders these days.’

‘No, it’s not, actually. Or rather, not that kind of business.’ I went through my usual spiel. ‘I’m acting for a lady by the name of Annia, Gaius Tullius’s widow.’

His eyes widened. ‘Widow? Tullius is dead?’

‘Yeah. You didn’t know?’

‘Why should I? And in what way are you “acting for” her?’

‘Tullius was murdered. Four days ago, in an alleyway near the Trigemina Gate.’

‘Merciful heavens!’ Well, the surprise seemed genuine enough. And he was right; there wasn’t any reason why he should know. ‘Who did it?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. Like I said, I’m going around asking questions on his wife’s behalf.’

‘So why talk to me? It’s more than a year since I saw him last.’

‘So I’d heard. No hassle, I’m just being thorough, and it won’t take long. You got ten minutes to spare?’

‘Certainly. More, if you need them. But I’ll tell you now that you’re wasting your time. There’s nothing I can say that will help you.’ He paused. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, Valerius Corvinus. If and when you find out who the killer is, you bring him round here and I’ll be honoured to shake the man’s hand.’

I blinked; there’d been real venom behind the words, not just casual dislike, and coming suddenly from this gentle-looking, soft-spoken guy it put me off my stride.

‘According to Tullius’s partner, Poetelius, you used to be one of the firm’s main suppliers,’ I said.

‘That’s right. For ten years, or thereabouts, practically since they set up in business. I supplied Tullius’s father, too, before he died.’

‘Care to tell me what happened? Why you decided to part company with them?’

‘It’s simple enough, and the parting company was no doing of mine. Fourteen months ago the contract came up for renewal. Tullius told me he was awarding it elsewhere. End of story.’

‘He give you a reason?’

The barest smidgeon of hesitation. ‘No. No, he didn’t.’

‘And you weren’t expecting the decision?’

‘No, again. In fact, just a couple of months previously he’d talked about doubling the existing order. That made things even worse.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘We were working flat out as it was. With double the order I couldn’t deliver fast enough and still guarantee the same quality, so before the new contract could be signed I had to expand – buy more slaves, suitably skilled ones, install an extra kiln, order and pay for extra materials, make a dozen other improvements. That doesn’t come cheap, especially when it all has to be done on only two months’ warning. I wasn’t exactly living hand-to-mouth at the time, but I didn’t have nearly enough ready cash to meet the expense, which meant I had to borrow.’

I was getting the picture here. Money-lenders aren’t known for their generous and philanthropic natures, and the interest rates for a big loan advanced at short notice would be crippling; Vibius would’ve had to pay through the nose. ‘And then Tullius suddenly cancelled the contract, right?’ I said. ‘Leaving you with a debt you couldn’t service.’

‘We could, just, although it wasn’t easy. I had other customers, of course, Tullius’s firm wasn’t the only one, but their order was the biggest on our books by a long chalk, and because it had been coming in regularly for the past ten years we’d got into the habit of relying on it to keep things turning over. It takes time to build up a replacement market, and the sudden fall in sales and the wait to bring them up again nearly broke us. Certainly it swallowed every copper piece I had in savings. We’re over the worst now, but things are still difficult, and will be for years to come.’ He gave me a straight look. ‘Which is why, Valerius Corvinus, you will not catch me shedding any tears for Gaius Tullius. And now, if that’s all you need to know’ – he stood up – ‘I’ll let you go about your business. I’m sorry, but I can’t wish you luck.’

I stood up too. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Thanks for your time.’ I paused, my hand on the door handle. ‘That your daughter, by the way? The girl upstairs.’

He frowned. ‘Yes. Yes, it is. My daughter, Vibia.’

‘She’s a lovely-looking girl. You and your wife must be proud.’

A pause. ‘I am, certainly. My wife is dead.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I opened the door. ‘Thanks again. And my apologies for disturbing you.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

I left.

Interesting, yes?